My name is Andrew Price and I run Blender Guru. I am 23 years old and live in Brisbane, Australia.
Before creating Blender Guru, I used to work for Toyota as a debt collector. That’s right… if you didn’t pay your bills you had to deal with this:
Hey, when can we expect the next payment?
I also used to serve in the Australian Army as a Reservist.
The true face of a 'Weekend Warrior'
When I’m not talking on the phone or shooting guns, I’m lifting weights at the gym. My dream is to one day weigh 90kg, but I can’t seem to break 80kg!
In August last year, I went to a party of a mutual friend and met my now girlfriend, Chloe Lim. She knows all about my obsession with blender, but doesn’t mind it as long as it doesn’t cut into our “together time” 
On a date in Roma St Parklands, Brisbane
Back at the beginning…
One of the turning points for becoming interested in 3d graphics was at a LAN party (yes I used to be a regular). The person on the computer next to me was telling me all about how they use Blender in their free time. “What’s Blender?”was my response.
To demonstrate, he showed me a little animation he had made of a helicopter robot taking off and landing. I was blown away! It looked like Pixar! (or so I thought at the time)
I figured that if he could make that by himself, then so could I.
And it wasn’t long after when I discovered this image and sealed my obsession:
So sexy...
At this point I made a silent vow to learn Blender well enough until I could create a car like this.
How did you learn Blender?
My first week with Blender could best be described as embarrassing. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. In fact, if you check my post history on blenderartists.org you can see what a true burden I was to the community:
*groan* Another thread by redbyte.
My learning style was the very definition of “play it by ear”. I randomly floated from tutorial to tutorial, finishing some and abandoning others until I could finally create something of my own. As I recall it was a cube man.
Through constant practice and learning new things I eventually nailed the basics and moved onto bigger projects.
4 years into my learning process, and I was finally able to accomplish the dream I set out to achieve:
My very own shiny red car!... Now what?
Why Blender Guru?
I started Blender Guru in April 2009 as a way to raise my profile as a freelancing artist. I had heard that creating tutorials was a good way to get noticed, so I registered the domain name blenderguru.com and started writing.
However it wasn’t until I attended the Blender conference in 2009, that my goal changed.
People who I had never met were coming up to me, shaking my hand, and asking me when the next tutorial would be released. I was flabbergasted!
So from that point on I decided to make educational products my primary focus.
My first training product was an eBook called ‘The Wow Factor‘, and my most recent product is The Nature Academy.
Other Hobbies
As well as Blender, I also enjoy…
Going to music festivals:
At Big Day Out 2010, watching Lilly Allen perform
Exploring the outdoors:
Trekking up a mountain in South Korea.
Going on holidays:
Enjoying a swim at Fraser Island
Well that’s probably more than you wanted to know, so I’m going to wrap this up.
You can also reach me on Twitter and Facebook.
I hope you enjoy the site! 
Hey Andrew! What happened to the weird and strange description you had of your self here?
Love the new layout. (Need the Guest Tutorial Section)
help me
“Climbing a mountain in South Korea.” Yeah, not like there’s a 100,000 foot drop below you or anything. 0.0
Hey Andrew,
Firstly i want to introduce myself, im from mauritius and i found out about blender years ago when i was living in melbourne,australia, but neva took it forward. Now im back to it and its has changed quite a bit….Your tutorials were great help. I still a noobie and learning now. I wanted to ask you why dont you introduce a forum on blenderguru, well i didnt see one. just an idea so as we share everything easily and others can have there say too. Making this website educational, community oriented and building up a database of members.
Anyhow Thumbs up for your work.
Figured i would let you know, as of today your site keeps popping up in firefox as a “badsite” you may want to contact who ever hosts your site, and have them go through it and look for a potential script that could be dangerous, or unsecured. I work at a hosting company, and sometimes there can be security holes in Forms such as the one im filling out, that will enable some one to run a script on your site. But i figured i would give you a heads up, as the warnings that pop up may stop some new traffic from coming to your site, or scare away people who do come to your site. If you have any questions send me an email.
Mike,
You re right. I got tht too .>Avast picked that up when i tried to access the site
exelente. gracias por tus tutoriales son muy buenos
haste uno del motor de juego
Hello Andrew,
first, thank you very much for the great tuts! This helped and always inspired me to much! Sorry that I ask you on this way. You told that you will do the nature academie again. Because, for me in the first time it was impossible and I wanna do it. When its will be repeat?
Blender Guru is now offering $100 for a published tutorial! This video will explain some of the finer details before you apply.
Are you still doing this???
Also what recording equipment would you sugest?
If you are still doing this – contact me or advise how to contact you!
What is the nature academy? I’ve been to the site, but I can’t find any information about it.
I am totally inspired by blender. After spending so much time and money in the 3ds Max world I have had it and am moving into a better Blender lifestyle.
My problem though is I am not able to access the Cycles render engine. I downloaded and installed the latest Blender 2.6 and looked under files/user preferences/add-ons as you instructed in your latest “using cycles” tutorial but I do not see the Cycles option anywhere. What am I missing. Do I need to download the Cycles Engine from somewhere else.
Please help. Cycles is truly just what the Blender Doctor ordered.
Waxmodeler
Did you download a Cycles release from graphicall.org?
http://graphicall.org/?keywords=cycles
Your story gives me hope that someday I’ll get a grip on Blender
.
Hi,
i’m a french student in a télécommunications school and since i’m working on a project currently that involves creating an animated 3D logo, i was wondering if you could help me because i’m at new at blender and i just don’t have time to take turorials !!
thanks for letting me know !
Great video tutorials. You are very clear in your explanatons and go slow enough that a nubee, like myself, can follow. I have you on my favorites for instructions in the Blender enviornment. As a mechanical engineer and working with exact numbers most of the time, it is difficult some tines to relate to the way things are done in the artistic enviornment but I’m learning.
Thanks for your efforts in presenting such great tuts.
Ray
Amazing tutorials man. I hope to use blender to do anime videos. I started a few weeks ago saying this is so complicated just pressing random buttons and then getting mad but your tutorials have really helped me a lot. Thank you!
Hi Andrew,
Saw your video tutorial realistic water simulation great work!!!
but i want to know how you can get both keyboard and mouse action on the video tutorial?
are you using some software ?
I think that Blender Guru is a very nice page,but I think that you forgot put the game engine tutorials so,I want to submit some one from basic game that is for move the mesh an put controlers to an avanced game that is put a health bar or limited ammo or pick ups and more…
Hi Andrew, dropped a line to you on Google+ and Ton but no response little clunky to use yet so I will intro myself here.
First off big fan I have lectured in 3D since 2008, using blender of course over here in Western Australia Polytechnic west Midland, My students and I use your tutes and I recommend them heavily good work. because I’m an Aussie I am asked from other countries if I know you (because Australia is such a small place) so to rectify this i’ll say Hey..:)
Hi
I now how to model a car
but i haven´t any idea, how to create these reflections ?
Can you help?
(make a short tutorial ?)
Thanks for that great tutorials
Tom
if you are using cycles use hdri lighting. blender fails at making them.
Hi !
I have downloaded cycles
where exactly can I activate hdri lighting ?
Thanks
Dear Andrew Price,
First of all, let me congratulate you for your work. You are a reference in the Opensource graphics worlds and you really deserve it.
Using your tutorials as inspiration I am teaching a group of about a dozen teenagers the ways of the CG using blender, as well as vector graphics with inkscape and so on. I want to give these guys a better future than what they should face normally considering their reality.
Anyway, as I see, you are a Blender “explorer” and that’s really cool. I was wondering, after a few tries, what would be the results YOU could get modeling something like a cartoonish animal or even a person in Blender. My results have all been… Well, let’s just say they are not what I call professional. Any advices?
Best wishes, keep on the good work!
Cassio B. Carmo – Brazil
I’m not going to lie, the most reassuring part of this intro was how you said it took you four years to get to where you are now. It’s day 2-3 for me and already I’m like, “Y NO EXPERT??” since I’m a bit of a perfectionist…
I think that I’m getting there, though. I don’t plan on giving up and I know that a LOT of hard work will pay off in the end.
Thanks for the inspiration, Andrew
Groso! ;D
Gracias por los tutos, muy buenos!
Andrew Price I have been following your videos and I like what the blender does, but your work is really good I’m from Portugal and would like to have your mail because sometimes I have questions and would like to learn more with you. my email is cg_blender@hotmail.com, thank you Andrew Price and liked to talk to you soon.